Vizconde Massacre 1991

The Vizconde Massacre was the
multiple homicide of members of the Vizconde family on June 30, 1991 at
their residence in BF Homes, Parañaque, Metro Manila, Philippines.
Estrellita, 47, had suffered thirteen stab wounds; Carmela, 18, had
suffered seventeen stab wounds and had been raped before she was killed;
and Jennifer, 7, had nineteen stab wounds.Lauro Vizconde,
Estrellita's husband, and the father of Carmela and Jennifer, was in the
United States on business when the murders took place.

The lead
suspect was Hubert Webb, whose father Freddie Webb was famous as an
actor, former basketball player, and former Congressman and Senator. The
other defendants were Antonio Lejano II, Hospicio Fernandez, Michael
Gatchalian, Miguel Rodriguez, Peter Estrada, Joey Filart and Artemio
Ventura. In the Trial Court (People of the Philippines vs. Hubert
Webb, et al., G.R. No. 176864), it became one of the most sensational
cases in the Philippines, becoming the "trial of the century". The men
were convicted by the Parañaque Regional Trial Court which the Court of
Appeals affirmed. Except for Filart and Ventura who had been convicted
in absentia, the men were later acquitted by the Supreme Court on
December 14, 2010 for failure of the prosecution to prove their guilt
beyond reasonable doubt.

Case
The case remained unsolved for almost four years until eyewitness
Jessica Alfaro, a self-confessed former drug addict, came forward on
April 28, 1995 to shed light on the killing of the Vizcondes. Alfaro
implicated the children of wealthy and prominent families including
Hubert Webb, Antonio Lejano II, Hospicio Fernandez, Michael Gatchalian,
Miguel Rodriguez, Peter Estrada, Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura.[3]

Alfaro's testimony coincides with the angle that was being explored
by Supt. Rodolfo Sison, the police investigator originally assigned to
the case in 1991. Sison was ordered to desist from further investigating
that angle by then Philippine National Police Capital Region Commander Marino Filart after six members of akyat bahay gang(burglars) were arrested by Regional Police Unit in October 1991.[3][4][5] The suspects said they were tortured and forced to confess to the crime before they were presented by Filart to the media.[6] They were acquitted by a trial judge in September 1993 for insufficient evidence. [6]

Trial

Prosecution
The trial began in August 1995 before Paranaque RTC Judge Amelita
Tolentino. Alfaro had testified that she knew the suspects and was at
the Vizconde house when the crime was committed. By Alfaro's account,
after a drug session with the group, Hubert Webb allegedly had hatched
his plan to rape Carmela Vizconde. Webb wanted Alfaro, the then
girlfriend of one of the accused men, Peter Estrada, to join them
because Estrellita Vizconde only allowed her daughter to go out and
entertain female visitors.

Alfaro testified that as Webb followed Carmela into the dining room,
she decided to step outside for a smoke. From there she allegedly saw
Lejano and Ventura take a knife from the kitchen drawer, while the rest
of the gang acted as lookouts. Alfaro said Estrellita was killed before
Webb began to rape Carmela. Jennifer woke up and, seeing Webb violating
her sister, jumped on him and bit him. He then hurled the little girl to
a wall and started stabbing her.

Alfaro said that when she went back to the house, she saw the bodies
of Estrellita and Jennifer on the bed and Webb raping Carmela on the
floor. Lejano and Ventura also took turns raping Carmela, before
finishing her off with numerous stabs.[1]
Alfaro said that policeman Gerardo Biong "was instructed by Webb, in my
presence, to take care of the house where the incident happened".
Alfaro also said that she bumped into Biong at the Faces Disco in Makati
in March 1995 and relayed to her the offer of the group to give her a
free ticket to the United States to shut her up. She added that suspect
Miguel Rodriguez warned her to "shut up or you're gonna get killed" in
the same disco on April 8, 1995 prompting her to voluntarily submit
herself to the National Bureau of Investigation(NBI) for protection.[7]
According to the footage of the trial, Alfaro had been able to identify
all the defendants by their names. The defense questioned Alfaro's
credibility noting that she admitted to being under the influence of
drugs when she allegedly witnessed the crime and had made inconsistent
statements on her two affidavits.
Alfaro said she was then having reservations when she first executed
the first affidavit and held back vital information due to her natural
reaction of mistrust.[8]

Alfaro's testimony was corroborated by other witnesses including:
Lolita Birrer, a former live-in partner of policeman Gerardo Biong, who
narrated the manner of how Biong investigated and tried to cover up the
crime. Birrer said she had accompanied Biong to the Vizconde house to
destroy the evidence and to retrieve Webb’s jacket and the murder
weapon. She also testified that Biong received money at a house that she
later learned belonged to then Parañaque
Congressman Freddie Webb; the Webb family's maids, Mila Gaviola and
Nerissa Rosales, who both testified that Hubert Webb was at home on June
30, 1991. At about 4 a.m. on June 30, 1991, Gaviola woke up and entered
the bedrooms to get the Webb's dirty laundry and wash it as part of her
job. She said that when she entered Hubert’s room, she saw him wearing
only his pants, awake and smoking in bed. While washing Hubert Webb's
clothing, Gaviola said she noticed fresh bloodstains on his shirt. After
she finished the laundry, she went to the servant's quarters. But
feeling uneasy, she decided to go up to the stockroom near Hubert's room
to see what he was doing. In the said stockroom, there is a small door
going to Hubert's room and in that door there is a small opening where
she used to see Hubert and his friends sniffing on something. She
observed Hubert was quite irritated, uneasy, and walked to and from
inside his room.[1][9]Security
guards Justo Cabanacan and Normal White. Cabanacan said Webb had
entered the subdivision(where the Vizconde house was located) a few days
before the massacre and that he even identified himself as the son of
then Congressman Webb. White, on the other hand, said he saw the three
cars enter the subdivision on the night of June 29, as Alfaro had
testified; White also testified that policeman Gerardo Biong was the
first to arrive at the crime scene.[10][11]

Other prosecution witnesses were: Carlos J. Cristobal who alleged
that on March 9, 1991 he was a passenger of United Airlines Flight No.
808 bound for New York and who expressed doubt on whether Hubert Webb
was his co-passenger in the trip; NBI medico-legal Dr. Prospero
Cabanayan, Belen Dometita and Teofilo Minoza, two of the Vizconde maids;
and Manciano Gatmaitan, an engineer.[12]

Defense

The defense produced documents and presented 95 witnesses, including
Hubert Webb himself and his father, along with other relatives and
friends to support Webb’s alibi that he was in the United States from
March 9, 1991, to October 26, 1992. On October 1, 1996, Judge Amelita
Tolentino admitted only 10 of the 142 pieces of evidence the defense
presented.[9]
(Under Philippine law, generally, alibi is the weakest defense,
especially where there is direct testimony of an eyewitness, duly
corroborated by another. People vs. Bello, G.R. No. 124871, May 13,
2004.)

Among evidence that was not admitted by Judge Tolentino, was the note verbale from the United States Embassy in Manila
claiming that Webb entered the United States in March 1991 and left in
October 1992. This coincided with his passport and Philippine
Immigration records but were dismissed by Tolentino due to belief that
these documents can possibly be falsified.[citation needed].(The
Philippine Rules of Evidence require official attestation of the
authenticity of any public document presented in evidence; as per Sec.
24, Rule 134, R. Evid.)

Moreover, Judge Tolentino also denied Webb's request to subject semen
samples to DNA testing on the belief that the samples may no longer be
intact.[citation needed] The accused alleged that by rejecting 132 of the 142 pieces of evidence, Tolentino had set the tone for their conviction.[9]
On July 24, 1997, the Supreme Court noted that Tolentino erred when she
refused to admit the 132 pieces of evidence presented by the defense,
although these were later admitted in court through an order issued by
Tolentino.[9][13]

Among the defense witnesses was Artemio Sacaguing, a former, now deceased NBI
official who testified that Alfaro was an NBI asset who only
volunteered to assume the role of the eyewitness when she could not
produce the actual witness to the Vizconde killings.

Former NBI official Pedro Rivera however dismissed as lies the
testimony of Sacaguing saying that “Agent Sacaguing had a record of
notoriety in the NBI which prompted his transfer to remote places of
assignment… until his early retirement”. According to Rivera, Sacaguing
was never part of the NBI team assigned to investigate the Vizconde
massacre and that his former colleague took Alfaro’s statement in April
1995 without the presence of a lawyer. “Sacaguing broke the guidelines
in taking affidavits from witnesses. His intention was very, very
dubious,” he said. [14]

Decision

On January 6, 2000, Judge Tolentino rendered her decision, finding
Hubert Webb, Peter Estrada, Hospicio Fernandez, Michael Gatchalian,
Antonio Lejano II and Miguel Rodriguez guilty beyond reasonable doubt of
the crime of rape with homicide. They were sentenced to life
imprisonment and ordered to indemnify the Vizconde family Php 3 million for the murders.[1] Two of the accused remain fugitives from the law: Joey Filart and Artemio Ventura. Former Paranaque City
policeman Gerardo Biong was found guilty as an accessory for burning
bedsheets and tampering with other evidence in the crime. He was
sentenced to eleven years in prison. Biong was released from jail on
November 30, 2010 after serving his sentence.[15]

In her decision, Tolentino described the testimony of defense
witnesses as full of inconsistencies and biased. She said the US-based
defense witnesses, most of whom are relatives or friends of the Webb
family suffered from "incorrigible and selective memory syndrome".
She cited the testimony of Alex del Toro, husband of Webb's relative,
who said he hired Hubert Webb as an employee at his pesticide company in
California. Both Webb and del Toro could not describe in court what
Hubert's work was, Tolentino said. Tolentino also found it hard to
believe that Webb was working with a pesticide company because he was
asthmatic and allergic to various substances. Webb's testimony was also
contradicted by other US-based defense witnesses who said they usually
saw him "going to the beach, malling, bar-hopping or playing basketball.
Tolentino also said, the photographs and videotapes purportedly showing
Webb in the United States appeared to be tampered.[1]
Tolentino said the certificates issued by the US Immigration and
Naturalization Service and the Philippine Bureau of Immigration "could
have easily been obtained by the powerful Webb family". [16]

Supreme Court decision

In April 2010, the Supreme Court
approved DNA testing to be performed on the semen specimen obtained
during autopsy from Carmela Vizconde. This has resulted in the
revelation by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that they no
longer had the specimens as these were remanded to the Parañaque courts.[19]

On October 8, 2010, Webb filed an urgent motion for acquittal.[20] On November 26, 2010, Lauro Vizconde voiced his concern to media about the purported lobbying of Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio for the reversal of the guilty verdict. Carpio testified for the defense during the trial. The Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption(VACC)
asked Justice Antonio Carpio and his cousin Justice Conchita
Carpio-Morales to take a leave while the case is being decided to avoid
undue influence on the court's decision.[21]
This was categorically denied by the Supreme Court as Justice Carpio
had in fact inhibited himself from the case and was not going to take
part in the deliberation.[22][23]

On December 14, 2010, the Supreme Court reversed the earlier judgment
of the lower court and Court of Appeals and acquitted seven of the nine
accused, including Hubert Webb, finding that the prosecution failed to
prove that the accused were guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The High
Court put to question the quality of the testamentary evidence furnished
by the witnesses. No acquittal has been made as to the two accused,
Filart and Ventura, who remain at-large. Of the 15 Justices, 7 voted for
acquittal while four dissented and four Justices, including Carpio, did
not participate.[24]

Concurring opinionSeven justices based its decision on the following points:

Alfaro's testimony will fall apart if Webb was not in the crime scene and will relieve the other accused of the crime

Loss of DNA evidenceWebb, citing Brady v. Maryland,
said "that he is entitled to outright acquittal on the ground of
violation of his right to due process given the State’s failure to
produce on order of the Court either by negligence or willful
suppression the semen specimen taken from Carmela." The court argued
that the cited case has been superseded by Arizona v. Youngblood, "where the U.S. Supreme Court
held that due process does not require the State to preserve the semen
specimen although it might be useful to the accused unless the latter is
able to show bad faith on the part of the prosecution or the police".

The court considered the accused's "lack of interest in having
such test done" in which they concluded that the state "cannot be deemed
put on reasonable notice that it would be required to produce the semen
specimen at some future time".[25]

Alfaro's testimony
The court ruled that Alfaro was "a stool pigeon,
one who earned her living by fraternizing with criminals so she could
squeal on them to her NBI handlers." The court also said that it was
"possible for Alfaro to lie" on the details of the case. Alfaro, who had
"practically lived" at the NBI's offices, would have been able to hear
about the details, and gain access to the documents, without difficulty.
The court noted the inconsistency between Alfaro's testimony of Webb
being Carmela's girlfriend, who had no reason in breaking the glass
panel of the house's front door to enter the house; Alfaro said that
Webb "picked up some stone and, out of the blue, hurled it at the glass-paneled front door".
Alfaro, upon explaining on how the house was ransacked, (the Parañaque
police had earlier blamed house robbers as suspects), said that Ventura
was looking for the front-door key and the car key.

The court said the "portion of Alfaro's story appears tortured to accommodate the physical evidence of the ransacked house" adding that "it
is a story made to fit in with the crime scene although robbery was
supposedly not the reason Webb and his companions entered that house".
The court also said the same for the issue of the garage light: she
claimed that Ventura climbed the car's hood, using a chair, to turn the
light off. But, unlike the house robbers, however the court points out
that "Webb and his friends did not have anything to do in a darkened garage."[25] In general, the court said that Alfaro's story "lacks sense or suffers from inherent inconsistencies."[25]

Corroborating witnessesThe court held that security guard Normal E. White, Jr.'s testimony
was unreliable. White was mistaken in saying that Gatchalian and company
went in and out of the gated community many times, since they only
entered once.[25]
Justo Cabanacan, the security supervisor of the gated community, said
that he saw Webb enter the gated community, although he did not record
Webb entering in his log book.[25]

The court also held that the testimony of the Webb's maid, Mila
Gaviola, was also unreliable since she was not able to distinguish if it
was Hubert whom she saw on June 30, 1991, nor "did she remember any of the details that happened in the household on the other days".[25]Webb's alibi
The court said that "among the accused, Webb presented the strongest alibi". The lower courts, however, reasoned that "Webb's alibi cannot stand against Alfaro's positive identification of him." The court said that Alfaro was not a credible witness and that her "story of what she personally saw must be believable, not inherently contrived".[25]

For the alibi to be established "the accused must prove by
positive, clear, and satisfactory evidence... that he was present at
another place at the time of the perpetration of the crime, and that it
was physically impossible for him to be at the scene of the crime". The lower courts, the Supreme Court said, held that "Webb was actually in Parañaque when the Vizconde killings took place". However, the court pointed out that while Webb or his parents may be able to "arrange for the local immigration to put a March 9, 1991 departure stamp on his passport and an October 27, 1992 arrival stamp",
they could not fix a foreign airlines’ passenger manifest, and the U.S.
Immigration’s record system. The court also said that if Webb was in
the U.S. when the crime was committed, the Alfaro's testimony would not
hold together: "Without it, the evidence against the others must necessarily fall."[25]

Conclusion
The court maintained that for a person to be convicted there should
not be "a reasonable, lingering doubt as to his guilt." As a result, the
court reverses the decision of the Court of Appeals, and acquits Webb,
et al.[25]

Dissenting opinionIn his dissenting opinion, Justice Villarama argued that the claim of
Webb that he could not have committed the crime because he left for the
United States on March 9, 1991 and returned to the Philippines only on
October 26, 1992 was correctly rejected by the Regional Trial Court and
Court of Appeals. Given the financial resources and political influence
of his family, it was not unlikely that Webb could have traveled back to
the Philippines before June 29–30, 1991 and then departed for the US
again, and returning to the Philippines in October 1992. Webb's travel
documents and other paper trail of his stay in the US are unreliable
proof of his absence in the Philippines at the time of the commission of
the crime charged. Webb's reliance on the presumption of regularity of
official functions, stressing the fact that the US-INS certifications
are official documents, is misplaced. The presumption leaned on is
disputable and can be overcome by evidence to the contrary. In this
case, the existence of an earlier negative report on the NIIS record on
file concerning the entry of appellant Webb into and his exit from the
US on March 9, 1991 and October 26, 1992, respectively, had raised
serious doubt on the veracity and accuracy of the subsequently issued
second certification dated August 31, 1995 which is based merely on a
computer print-out of his alleged entry on March 9, 1991 and departure
on October 26, 1992. Villarama noted that the alleged Passport,
Passenger Manifest of United Airlines Flight and United Airline ticket
of accused Webb offered in evidence were mere photocopies of an alleged
original, which were never presented. He adds, this Court takes judicial
notice of reported irregularities and tampering of passports in the
years prior to the recent issuance by the Department of Foreign
Affairs(DFA) of machine-readable passports.[26]